Using
the Internet to Conduct Research in the History of
Mathematics
Sloan
Despeaux
Getting Started:
Check out this website for short
biographies of LOTS of mathematicians. The references section can get
you started on your search for primary and secondary sources.
The British Society for the
History of Mathematics maintains a page created by June Barrow-Green
that gives links to sites on the history of mathematics. Many of the
links presented in this workshop were obtained through this site.
This site contains biographies for
women mathematicians through history.
Finding Secondary Sources:
This website database will search
for articles in
all areas of mathematics, including the history of mathematics. IMPORTANT: go to “full search” and
enter “01” under the “MSC Primary” field. This will limit your search
to the
history of mathematics. You may need to go through your university
library’s
site to get here, because subscription is required.
This
link gives the tables of contents from volume 1 to volume 23 (2). You
can get
the table of contents in plain text, then do a keyword search using
WORD, for
example.
This
link gives the tables of contents for Historia
Mathematica issues 23(3) to the present.
This
site is still under construction, but will soon allow you to search the
Abstracts section of Historia Mathematica
by author, title,
or keyword.
The BSHM writes abstracts on
journal articles and
books on the history of mathematics. You can find the abstracts, listed
in
alphabetical order by author, from 1992 to today at this site.
Finding Primary Sources:
- The
references section of your secondary articles can get you started.
This
site gives a bibliography of the collected works of mathematicians.
WorldCat can help you search the
world’s libraries
for your primary sources. You can find out which libraries hold your
item,
information that may make your interlibrary loan folks very happy. You
may need
to go through your university library’s site to get here, because
subscription
is required. At WCU, you can use this link: http://firstsearch.oclc.org/WebZ/FSPrefs?entityjsdetect=:javascript=true:screensize=large:sessionid=sp07sw05-43699-e4siytg5-oa76hz:entitypagenum=1:0
Digitized Primary and Secondary Sources:
The
Digital Mathematics Library (DML) provides links to a stunning variety
of digitized mathematical journals and books. It lists these links by
repository, author, and title. Some of the repositories are included in
the links below.
This site provides access to
digitized journals on
mathematics and the history of science, among other topics. You may need
to go through your university library’s site to get here, because
subscription
is required.
Cornell University Library Historical Mathematics Monographs
provides digitized copies of the mathematical books in the Cornell
collection, especially the fragile ones.
The
Perseus Project at Tufts University provides originals and translations of
several ancient Greek mathematical works.
The University of Michigan Historical Mathematics
Collection contains digitized mathematical books
from the 19th and 20th centuries.
Specific Primary and Secondary Sources:
This
site contains the full text of Euclid’s Elements with
interactive capabilites.
This
site provides excerpts from W.W. Rouse Ball’s 1908 Short
Account of the History of Mathematics.
Finding Pictures:
Along
with its biographies, the St. Andrews site and the Agnes Scott site contain
a variety of pictures of the mathematicians they discuss.
This site reproduces pictures of
postage stamps
that feature famous mathematicians.
Go to the site: http://members.aol.com/jeff570/mathsym.html
This site has references to the earliest known
uses of
mathematical symbols.
- Hint:
if you can find the collected works of a mathematician in digitized
form, there
is often a picture of that mathematician near the title page.